Italy's Padoan sees no banks needing bailout fund on horizon

ROME, June 9 (Reuters) - Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Thursday he saw no immediate need for Italy's bank bailout fund to be used to recapitalise any more lenders after Veneto Banca completes its 1 billion euro initial public offering launched this week.

Asked in an interview with Reuters if he saw any other banks needing the Atlante fund to backstop a cash call in the near future, Padoan replied: "I don't see any others," adding with a smile, "If you see any let me know."

Italy set up Atlante in April with mostly private support to prop up a banking sector struggling with 360 billion euros ($408 billion) in bad loans by buying up soured debts and acting as an investor of last resort for rights issues at weaker lenders.

The fund has already taken a 99 percent stake in ailing mid-tier bank Popolare di Vicenza after investors spurned its 1.5 billion euro capital raising, and is expected to also take over fellow regional lender Veneto Banca.

That has raised concerns that the 4.25 billion euro fund will end up using the bulk of its resources to bail out weaker banks instead of focusing on the more structural issue of helping lenders offload bad loans.

Padoan said he hoped that UniCredit, Italy's largest bank by assets, would name a new chief executive quickly, following Federico Ghizzoni's decision to step down last month.

Padoan said he was not worried that a replacement had not yet been found, but he added: "I hope they do it quickly." He said he expected a new CEO would be named within "a few weeks" and fully installed by the end of the summer.

Padoan said the government was looking at ways to use a public company called Societa per la Gestione di Attivita (SGA) to invest in financial instruments issued by Atlante, to give the fund more firepower and tackle the bad loans problem.

"It's a very technical issue but we are looking into ways to mobilise the resources of SGA, which are a few hundred million euros," he said.